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Pew Research finds that sixty percent of Americans respond negatively to “socialism.” It is clear why President Barack Obama must avoid that label. Words are important. Political candidates who control the language of political discourse win elections.

Most of our elites would certainly not entertain the question: “Is Obama a socialist?” Only irresponsible fanatics carelessly throw around such epithets, they say. Polite circles ignore such goofiness.

As someone who has professionally studied and written about comparative economics, capitalism, and socialism for almost fifty years, the reticence to probe the core beliefs of a political leader seems odd. The question is perfectly legitimate in both an academic and political context as long as we define terms and place the discussion in proper context.

By “socialist,” I do not mean a Lenin, Castro, or Mao, but whether Obama falls within the mainstream of contemporary socialism as represented, for example, by Germany’s Social Democrats, French Socialists, or Spain’s socialist-workers party?

By this criterion, yes, Obama is a socialist.

The socialist parties of Europe trace their origins to reform Marxism. After Marx’s death in 1883, Europe’s Marxists rejected the Bolsheviks' call for socialist revolution and worked within the political system for Marxist goals. Marxists, such as Karl Leibknecht, August Bebel, Paul Lafargue, Leon Blum, and others, formed the socialist parties that we know today. Most emerged from the trade-union movement, and they retain close ties with organized labor today, as does Obama’s Democrat Party.

Whereas, the eighteenth century liberalism of John Locke and Adam Smith gave us our constitution and limited government, Marxism provided the intellectual foundations of the European welfare state.

The European socialists have their welfare state. Even their conservative opponents no longer question the “social state,” despite rising concern about its affordability. In the United States, we are fighting the battle of the welfare state, and we do not know what the outcome will be.

The European welfare state takes one half of national output to provide state health care, pensions, extended unemployment benefits, income grants, and free higher education. Failed nationalizations taught European socialists to leave enterprise in private hands and coerce it through taxation and regulation to contribute to what the state deems the “social welfare.”

The November 2011 Declaration of Principles of the Party of European Socialists (PES) summarizes the European socialist agenda. I condense its main points and compare them with Obama’s statements and legislative initiatives:

PES: The welfare state and state-provided universal access to education and health care are society’s great achievements.

Obama: Favors universal access to health care and associated benefits as a critical expansion of the welfare state.